


TRACK FOUR ; POOLS

by lemongrassislands



Series: ZABA [2]
Category: Glass Animals (Band), Original Work
Genre: 1700's, 18th Century, Atmospheric, Based on a Glass Animals Song, Blood and Injury, Boats and Ships, Body Horror, Character Death, Deception, Drowning, Gen, Gothic, Graphic Description, High Emotion, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I'm Bad At Tagging, Immersive, Mild Gore, No Romance, Ocean, Original Fiction, Original Story - Freeform, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pain, Plant Gore, Poetic, Psychedelic, Psychic Bond, Reminiscing, Sea Monsters, Sirens, Slow Build, Song: Pools (Glass Animals), Songfic, Storms, Swimming, Thunder and Lightning, Trippy, Vines, flowery writing, glass animals - Freeform, how fhe FUCK do u tag, i make this sound so boring but trust me its good, prose, slow pacing, so much pain, this took me ages to write what the fuck, trickery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:15:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29231400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemongrassislands/pseuds/lemongrassislands
Summary: in the midst of a storm, isaiah is entranced by the sea. coaxed by a strange force, he plunges head first into the colourful abyss—spurred by a bizarre character with odd propositions.
Series: ZABA [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1904347
Kudos: 2





	TRACK FOUR ; POOLS

**Author's Note:**

> listen to pools by glass animals & opal ocean pt. 2 by slenderbodies for the best experience.
> 
> (tw for: blood, gore, death, drowning, butterfly mentions, alcohol mention, & non nsfw nudity)

_ WAVES CRASHED AGAINST _ the hull of the ship, rocking it violently like a duckling in dangerous waters. an indigo blanket of raindrops cloaked the massive vessel in shadow, pelting heavily down on the deck like hail in an april storm. the beating rain slicked the creaking floorboards, the wet ropes of the mast hung, viper-like, & the dull peal of the copper bells atop the crow’s nest fell to deaf ears. the sullen dusk air made lungs feel cumbersome in the high humidity, & the drunken sway of the ship made the sailors rock in their woven hammocks like infants in their cradles. one hammock was empty.

one man, aged eighteen, walked towards the ladder leading up to the deck. he walked along the wooden posts holding the rope hammocks, using them to aid his unsteady pilgrimage to the upper level. several times he lost his balance, the floor falling from beneath his feet. once, he fell to the ground, creating a thunder of his own, the air knocked out of his lungs. slowly he lifted himself & ran into the ladder. he grabbed hold of the rungs, &, in a burst of thunder, lifted open the hatch.

it was raining bullets, water pummeling his skin like a barrage of tiny rams with tiny horns, their tiny cocoa hooves creating thunder. he clamored onto the deck, already soaked to the bone & freezing in his thin linen shirt. gooseflesh marred his skin, the cold already seeping into him like he’d swallowed a thousand winters. he was breathing the ocean, saline mist flooding his lungs.

he stumbled to the oak railing, feet slipping on the floorboards. he leaned against it, feeling a kind of magnetic pull to the ocean. he looked out on its great empty vastness, heart hammering in his chest, like a kraken was constricting him.

under an unfurling cloak of grey mist, the white-capped waves rolled over each other, foaming & frothing like a litter of wolves. the blue air glimmered with the silvery cords of rain falling from bloated purple clouds above his head. fish with multicoloured scales leapt out the seething waters of the blue abyss, their slick bodies flashing in the brief periods where lightning struck. waves created a drumbeat against the hull of the ship, pitching it to & fro.

the man stood, head tilted to the sky as rainwater sluiced down his face, his shirt, his arms. his long eyelashes clung to his cheekbones, his coiled hair was plastered to his forehead. his shirt stuck to his chest, & it weighed him down as it became more saturated. he breathed in the cold summer night air, feeling his lungs burn. he blinked as a great fork of lightning split the sky in half, bleaching his dark face, & when the booming roll of thunder followed suit, he barely batted an eye.

his name was isaiah, & he missed sweeter days where he rode his mare on the farm. he missed the monotonous grey skies of england, the nuns coddling rowdy children in the streets, the tame, hard life of a farmhand, the smell of his mother's apple pie coming from the billowy white curtains in the kitchen window of his home, the sweet air floating from the crops of summer wheat, & the feeling of his father’s axe in his hands.

looking down at the fish with silvery scales swimming in the tall waves, he saw a fork of lightning strike the water. the greenish light spiderwebbed through the dark pit of the ocean. the entirety of the ocean lit up in such a pure, bright white that he needed to shield his eyes. through the cracks in his fingers, he saw the fish’s scales reflect the olive-toned light, his face dappled with colour. wonderstruck, he pondered how scales could produce such entrancing, psychedelic colours.

then, he felt it, like a tug at his heart: the anomaly in the chaos of the storm. isaiah’s head snapped up, rain whipping from his wet hair. ahead, the veil of purple mist shimmered, like smoke rising from a mirror. the air seemed to turn into glitter dust. it drifted & curled, stormy indigo in the tempest. behind a blurred curtain of rain formed some kind of silhouette in the dark. the man blinked, once, twice, thinking water must've fallen into his eyes, but it wasn’t a trick of the veiled moonlight.

there, on a rock in the center of the atlantic, sat a woman in the nude.

without any hesitation, isaiah dove into the ocean.

momentarily, he cut through the air. then his muscles seized as his body hit the water. he held his breath, too shocked to move. there was the pure blackness of the underwater, the loud, ear-grating silence of a world below his own. sometimes, his eyelids flashed red from the streaks of lightning pooling the world in the colour white.

cheeks puffed, he kicked, bubbles whisking from his stockinged feet. he began to panic as his lungs burned, demanding for air, but he hadn’t yet breached the surface. he made panicked strokes, gasping for air. he bobbed in the foaming waters, searching for the woman. squinting, he saw the mirage-like shimmer up ahea—

he was crushed by a towering wave crashing down upon him, his neck jerking downwards & his body spiralling underwater. water rushed up his nose, & it burned his sinuses. he couldn’t tell apart up & down, so he opened his eyes, & they stung from the salt. he blew the little air from his lungs out from his mouth, watching to where the bubbles rose. he followed them, swimming with feverish kicks & broad strokes before he found air once more.

this time, as he surfaced, he was more cautious of the rolling waves incoming. the sea frothed & churned around him, but somehow he stayed afloat. there was the kind of feverish shimmer in the air, & the silhouette of the woman appeared again. he swam towards her, getting battered & shoved by waves.

only a few feet away from the rock’s edge, something snared his leg. he fought to shake it away, but the more he kicked, the more tightly it coiled. with a grunt, isaiah managed to break free, feeling the thing snap with the sudden motion. faintly, over the monotonous blue sound of the rain hitting the water, he heard a laugh.

it was sweet & melodious, three short bursts of amused noise, golden honey dripping from the sound. then, the loud, silent drawl of raindrops hitting the water. any trace of the woman was gone, but he could feel it in his chest that she was near. taking a deep breath, he plunged underwater. it froze the marrow in his bones, & his hair floated around him like tendrils of inky darkness, reaching out.

a fork of lightning pierced the sky like an arrow, lighting up the deep indigo world before his eyes.

whorls of tired seafoam green anemones & pinkish red corals the colour of almost ripe apples from his parent’s orchard coloured the underwater oasis, spotted & dappled with dizzy neon yellows & oranges, like butterflies burning in the rain. fish lazily swam through the calm chaos, spotted in black & white, striped in purples & blues. pale seafoam dappled the waves, & he saw bubbles rise from his mouth & up to the foamy surface. in an instant, the underwater paradise vanished.

isaiah stroked forwards, churning the water, kicking for air again. he broke the surface, shaking the water off of him. he slicked his dark hair back. it was strangely quiet, he remarked. then, he saw it: the woman poised on a platform of rock, hair over her bare breasts falling like the warm sun over the wheat fields.

he stared in amazement, wading in the dark sea, before he clamored onto the rock, fuzzy with alge. it slipped between isaiah’s toes, causing him to lose his footing & hit his chin on the cold obelisk of stone. he inhaled sharply, sucking in air through his teeth. he lifted himself with dark, corded arms onto the platform.

the woman was seated in some kind of hollowed out basin, a small pool of glittering water sloshing over her folded legs. the sandy rock beneath them was smooth & buffered, & the water inside it was warm, like fine wine aged in whiskey barrels. he walked closer to the seated figure, water bubbling at his ankles. a sudden warmth filled his being, syrupy & golden. he sat beside her.

they revelled in silence, listening to the quiet lullaby of the push & pull of the sea. it had stopped raining, for isaiah could not hear the relentless pummelling of the rain beating against the tired ocean. the indigo moon had begun creeping shyly from behind heavy, curled clouds, light dying in the five a.m. light.

“i didn’t think you’d come.”

isaiah jumped. her voice was honeyed & as smooth as silk, clipped at the edges. it seemed to come from everywhere & nowhere all at once, as if the ocean itself spoke to him. he blinked, thinking himself too delirious to speak.

when she spoke again, the woman’s voice was clear as the peal of a church bell. isaiah regarded her side profile attentively, while she stared out at the rumbling water. her bare skin was the colour of seafoam, & her dark hair tumbled over her shoulders & down into the warm water they sat in, waving & curling like seaweed.

“for most,” she said, “they shrug it off & say it’s the wanderlust. others, meanwhile, think it’s homesickness. some, who are courageous enough to come to me, drown on their way here.” & then she turned her head to look at him. he gasped. she was of such splendid beauty: stormy eyes piercing through his own & gazing into his soul; full, rosy cheekbones that reminded isaiah of apples he’d feed to his stallion; the woman had full lips, bowed & tilted into a tender smile. she was beautiful—& yet, there was a certain air about her that made him uneasy. he could only smile, tilting his head.

she looked at him. “but not you. you found me.” again, her voice seemed to warble & come from everywhere but her own mouth. “you made it to me. you’re the first to have found me since i can remember.” orange-tinted pride swelled in isaiah’s chest. she held out her hand, & with a suave motion, a rose bud flowered from her upturned palm.

“for you,” she said. she offered the pink & white flower to him, an unspoken question written in her eyes. he was too awestruck to ponder the logic behind materializing such a beautiful flower from thin air. plants needed weeks upon weeks to take fruition, & that wasn’t even taking into account the labor to cultivate them. he took it. it shimmered & warped the air, as if it were a mirage in the sweltering heat of the sahara—& yet, he could feel it in his palm. the blossom weighed as little as a feather, & its pelats felt as soft as silk.

“thank you,” isaiah whispered. “but... why? why me? & how have i made it, swimming so far away from the ship?”

she shifted, water rippling as she moved closer. “i called you here. couldn’t you feel it? couldn’t you feel the pull?” the damp air around them stilled.

he tucked the flower behind his ear. its wan colour stuck out against his sun-kissed skin, petals as thin & fragile as the paper in a bible. even now, he could feel the feeble pull, like a noose tied around his heart, only to be puppeteered out of the gallows by this pale woman before him.

she moved closer still. he could feel the still wind shift around her, something not quite right about her. she kneeled before him, hands folded in her lap, her head slightly higher his own. she was backlit by a rising blue sun, wan rays of light casting her face in indigo shadow. her head was framed by a grey halo. the tang of salt was thick in the air. the purple sky was held up by alabaster pillars, mist rising from the swollen sea, causing an entrancingly beautiful marbling effect. colours seemed to dance together, fading into one another like the expensive oil paintings that smelled of linseed.

“the pull…” isaiah’s heart flipped in his chest, like a bird struggling to escape its bone cage. there—the steadfast tugging inside of his chest cavity. the grey air warbled between them, like the fabric of reality was warping like a thin veil before his very eyes. he couldn’t be sure, but he thought he saw the pearly glimmer of a smile embedded in the deep blue shadows masking her round face.

her face was very close to his now, her stormy eyes glimmering in the afterglow of rain. they reminded him of his father’s, warm & inviting, with crows feet when he smiled. isaiah could smell the faint, nostalgic scent of apple blossoms in the dry summer heat in her hair, reminiscent of better days spent cultivating apples for his mother’s pies. why did she remind him so much of home?

she held up a hand to his heart, pressing her palm into the soaked linen shirt that weighed him down. the warmth of her hand was comforting, & his mind was completely still.

“the pull…” she repeated.

isaiah’s body seized, corded muscles taught. slowly, he looked down with glassy eyes to where the ghost of her hand resided. vines tore through his swarthy skin & strangled his still beating heart, the tendrils slick with his own blood. a dark spot bloomed on his shirt, dripping down his chest like sweet nectar from a flower. the man felt a sudden wave of nausea, & he spasmed as he choked on blood & flower petals. petals like the ones in his hair floated in the water, slickened with blood, dancing as the woman backed away to admire her catch.

isaiah fell to all fours, his writhing heart lifting to his throat. his skin prickled as sweat poured from his brow, sucking in great lungfuls of air. his hands shook, slipping on the algae at the bottom of the shallow pool. he looked up to the woman. she was still backlit, framed by a rim of blue light, like some harrowing flame-licked deity. she loomed before him, sneering, sordid, sharklike, fingers clenched. “why…” he gasped out, the metallic taste of copper thick on his tongue.

she laughed, a delicate, bitter sound. “haven’t you heard of the stories, isaiah? of men chiseled from bronze & women with the most alluring of voices? stray people in the ocean, licked by the waves?”

the stories resurfaced in isaiah’s mind. “siren…” he wheezed. he coughed, pain searing his chest like a slave’s branding iron pressed upon his breast, spitting blood into the shallow pool. the man watched as it spiraled in the water, tinting it pink. isaiah reached up to his breast. there, he felt thick, sinewy tendrils falling out of his gaping chest, vines like green tongues lolling out of a twisted, grinning mouth, with gums of torn flesh & teeth of pointed bone. looking at himself in the ruddy water, he plucked at a flower also growing from his chest. he held the pinkish blossom with numb, trembling fingers. his vision blurred & figures danced before his eyes.

in a wave of delirium, he rasped, “it’s pretty…”

she woman scoffed. she kneeled. before him was a creature of myths & legends, wreathed in a pale amethyst light, cupping his cheek with a pale hand. she spoke, voice as smoky as the depths below the sea froth, underlying strength able to capsize an entire vessel & rid it of its men in a single hour. “you’ll be dead soon,” she crowed.

he looked up with bewildered eyes. a sudden pulse of adrenaline seized him. he cried out, pushing her away. he attempted to rise to his feet, but the heavy weight of blood-soaked vines made it a difficult task. his weakened legs wobbled, buckling under his weight. there was a frightening fragility about him now. he landed in the shallow pool, scraping his knees on shanks of slate & barnacles. he crawled away from the siren, hands slipping on bluish algae. he coughed, blood dribbling from his lip.

“stay away from me,” he rasped as she neared him.

“where are you going, isaiah? you’ve got nowhere to go.”

“i’m going home.”

she stepped over his shivering body. “that’s not possible. we’re surrounded by the atlantic. there’s no place for you to possibly run off to. you’re cornered, like a rat caught in the scheming paws of a feline.” she sat, legs folded over one another, hair spilling over her lap. “i’m going to stay right here to watch you die.” she let out a silvery laugh that irritated the dying man.

isaiah dragged himself over to the lip of the pool. he stared down, into the depths. the pale sun cast its morning rays upon a shattered mirror, sunlight fractals dancing upon his blanched face. the ocean licked the side of the rock with a certain kind of lethargy only seen in the king of cats, hissing as it struck the limestone. the foaming tongues graced isaias fingers as he lowered them into the maw of the sea, watching as they fed off of the blood coating them. his blood created blossoms in the water, much like the ones burgeoning from his fatal wound. he regarded himself, looking into the briny depths.

he saw a swarthy man staring back at him, a ghost of who he once might have been. he saw himself with the rosy pigmentation purged from his cheeks, & his skin pulled taut across his face. his hair was mottled & soaked, & in his eyes resided a bone-deep exhaustion unlike anything he had ever felt. this was not isaiah; this was the cast away shell of a dying man.

he panted, fingers curling over the lip of the basin, a sudden emptiness washing over him. he wavered as his entire body felt numb, save for the cool sea water & warm blood dripping from his chest. his vision blurred & doubled. he slowly turned his head towards the woman. the feeble sunbeams scorched his eyes & gave him a splitting headache. he blinked, forcing himself to look at the siren despite the pain. she was cast in shadow, backlit yet again. whereas before, isaiah regarded her an ethereal beauty, now he only saw some sinister, sneering beast of ill repute that lived up to the stories. & yet, she still wore the saccharine mask, the corners of her lips curled into a grin. how pretty, like the flowers blooming in his still-beating heart.

he smiled before he wanted to.

his arms lost all feeling, & he fell forward into the indigo water.

isaiah’s muscles seized, his body jolting with the numbing cold—then, the sharp, searing pain of salt being applied to a fresh wound washed over him. every nerve in his body came alight. this was not a dull throb, courtesy of shock. this was agony, a similar feeling to having a heated dagger embedded & twisted in his gut. he gasped, inhaling a lungful of salt water. he writhed in pain, movements sluggish & staggered with the underwater resistance. he folded onto himself, clutching his chest. bubbles streamed from his open mouth. & yet… he found comfort in the burning sensation, found it to be grounding.

a sudden wave of weariness overcame him. his muscles became lead. as he sunk deeper into the gaping mouth of the ocean, he looked at the trail of blood he left behind. the crimson liquid mixed in the water, a smearing of pink swirling into the water, contrasting the deep azure haze.

around him, fish with the prettiest scales of crimson & chrome reflected the indigo light from above. luminous blue dappled the man’s face as he sunk deeper, yet deeper. pressure leaned heavily against his chest, enough to feel every single fragment of his broken ribs. ruddy foam was painfully coughed up his lungs.

he sunk like a stone, tossed around by the current like a falling leaf in the bitter autumn winds. his head throbbed, a heavy drum beat pounding against his skull.

this was it. the dawn’s sunbeams grew too frail to penetrate the thick skin of the ocean. isaiah succumbed to a darkness as deep as death itself. he was going to die as siren fodder. it was a miracle he even made it this far. his lungs burned, screaming for air. he took one final breath, throat searing as it sluiced down his windpipe.

death. why him? he reluctantly left his england home to find a lover to settle down with in the americas, but he hadn’t even made it to firm ground. a bitter pang ached in his chest—an appalling homesickness overcame him. he shut his eyes against the bitter reality.

it was then that he saw the colour.

it was like a kaleidoscope. his vision basked in a sweet, sultry red—the same kind he would see when the sun burned through his closed eyelids as he lay in the orchard on the farm. veins the colour of a sour apple shot through the warmth, like blades of grass sprouting from the baked earth after a drought. the colour seeped into the red, turning into an earthy brown, like the dirt roads of his village after a particularly torrential downpour of rain. countless colours danced before his eyes like a whirlwind. cardinals fluttered against his eyelids, prismatic whites eased into motion, sweet golds swayed in the autumnal breeze, fractals of light moved silently across his face.

then, it silled.

everything darkened, saturating into a deep indigo hue that could only be described as stygian. it resembled the colour of the night sky he would watch from his windowsill when he couldn’t fall asleep. a dusting of opalescent speckles streaked across it, bleeding into the darker colour, like ink setting into a page. he wished he could stay in this quiet womb of the world for the remainder of his life.

then, so suddenly, it all shattered soundlessly. gossamer spiderwebs cracked the deep blue surrounding him, & everything hung dangerously still. he gasped as shards of colour fell towards the ocean floor, peaches & auburns & lilacs & sapphires tumbling in his mind’s eye. a colourful snow fluttered down to meet him, grazing his skin & leaving tiny, sensationless cuts on his arms. it was a swarm of deadly polychromatic butterflies, their wings so sharp as his blood pooled around him. isaiah’s body felt as if he were floating upon a cloud, so lightly, ready to be blown away by a single current. he floated, he fell, he spiralled into madness. reddish foam escaped his parted lips as he choked one final time.

he smiled before he came to.


End file.
